Cyber bullying is something that has evolved with technology. Prank phone calls and mean chain letters have become less necessary when the world wide web provides instant and often anonymous bullying. Children are falling victim to Facebook libel – sometimes taking their own lives to escape. Catherine Bernard committed suicide in February, 2012. She lived in Melbourne, Australia and had suffered severe depression brought on by cyber-bullying. She was not the first victim and she will not be the last. Unless something is done.
According to a recent global poll, Australia rates number one in the world for bullying on social networks like Facebook, with nine in 10 families reporting a child’s brush with bullies online.
Playground and classroom bullying has now spilled into the household. Once a sanctuary of peace and protection, children are only a click away from being bullied on their cell phones, email accounts, and facebook walls.
What these kids fail to realise it gets better. It’s easy enough to ignore, if you can’t then you probably have a personality disorder, no one is responsible for the victims mental instability.
I would be lying if I told you I agree with this law. Although I would rarely say arresting people is the answer to most problems. I also don’t like the cops being paid to monitor my conversations. The fact is you’ll never be fully shielded from peoples hate and punishing people after the fact isn’t going to make the problem go away especially if we are punishing children who don’t really know all the laws and their rights anyway. I would rather see the money go into education programs in school telling you what actions to take when bullied online than to make laws against it. There are ways to block only certain people from talking to you or seeing your posts. I also think there are always more factors than just some cyber bullies when it comes to suicide. I don’t know about you but this documentaries opinion on the old saying “sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me” is wrong. Names will never physically hurt you which is the point of the saying. You are all right. Go eat some toast.
I agreed with some of the comments advocating for blocking the cyber bullies or just getting the kids off the computer.
I have a bi-polar adult daughter who posts terribly derogatory comments about me (which are totally untrue) regularly, all over her face book page.
I don’t even go on face book, so I couldn’t care less what she is posting about me. My friends got very upset about her lies, and blocked her a long time ago.
However, a targeted child is different. They have very little experience in the ways of the world. Teenagers are sensitive, self conscious souls. They don’t have the emotional tools to disregard negative comments directed at themselves.
Me thinks the parents should keep their kids off of these sites if they are negatively affecting them; and any responsible parent should be reading the comments that THEIR children are posting.
If the kids protest against these measures, unplug their social networks.
Parents need to take a stand and control the situation.
That “troll” boy really is quite a contradiction. He obviously seeks attention from strangers by posting negative messages/opinions to people online to get them “riled up”. Yet, when he actually has a chance to get attention in a documentary, he covers his face. He spends so much time dishing it out but yet he remains in the shadows so nobody can give it back. *shakes head*.
Also, there was no way for me just to say what affected me in this doc without kind of writing a negative-ish comment online as well.
Perhaps if these dumbasses read a help file or just fkn googled it dot c0m re: facebook settings/DDoS mittigation/router applications, or just read a book instead…
yeh, i know this sounds cruel, but c’mon.. if folk ALLOW themselves to be bullied, then wtf… what are they waiting on eggzactly, someone to show ’em how to root unix boxes and create own botnet? sheeeeeesh | !votes for teenagers to be in bed reading books or doing homework, not talking bs in chatroomz. RTFMkkthxbye.
@ysalamiri are you serious? WTF does RTFM, DDoS, botnets, getting root on a *nix box or really anything that you just wrote have to do with any of this? Were you just trying to sound 1337? And no, it didn’t sound cruel – it sounded like you were a little special.. Go back to ICQ buddy…you’ll be cool there, again..
Its pretty simple. If you say something to be intentionally hurtful, and mean spirited towards somebody you’re an asshole. Assholes end up alone, hence, trolls. Its not tragic when its a choice.
I second that. But kids often have to find out about this truth of life the hard way. Trolls appear cool until everybody’s out of college and get on with their real lives. When you’re 15, another year seems like an eternity. So telling kids that bullies and trolls are losers and will eventually end up alone doesn’t work.
uhm, it seems like this entire thing. kinda failed to convince about what cyberbullying really is. the girl who took her own life seemed to have acted on impulse after a bad day. the boy who had a bad web site put up about him was a victim of a crime but that crime seemed more like stalking. people need to take responsibility for what information about themselves they put online. I’m sure this issue exists, but there are definitely more important things to address, like the stigma against mental illness that prevents susceptible people from getting help. Cyberbullying isn’t the problem.
also, reply to the first, its been proven that bullys don’t have self esteem issues. they need a good kick in the pants like everyone thought in the first place, and it was criminal to support self esteem programs for bullies instead of proper mental health availability for victims
@Odyssey
1. You’re basically arguing that bullying should happen because it does happen. Bullying is not an immutable law of nature, and is only part of life because humans perpetuate it.
2. I doubt that bullies view themselves as victims of anti-bullying efforts in real life. Furthermore, while I agree that we shouldn’t forget that even bullies have feelings, should that necessarily stop us from stopping them? The same problem occurs with crime, and we do try to stop criminals.
Bullying is part of life. Part of a lesson in life. It IS still the human Race, not the teddy-bears picnic we are preparing kids for.
And to all you vegan uber left wingers here’s a question…
A School of 700 students with a strong anti-bully policy posters all over the walls, every single perceived act of bullying detested and only one bully out of the 700, tell me,, who feels persecuted?
🙂
Are we to be ‘protected’ from life and taking responsibility for standing up for ourselves? Perpetual infants attract perpetual pedophiles. This nannying is a ruse for further ‘protective measures’ meaning no free speech or expression. Bullies are cowards. I’m little but I don’t truck with it and never have; I don’t tolerate it against others and I’ve had a real gang bullying situation involving a huge bunch of psychos. No help forthcoming from the very authorities pushing this envelope as they are all involved.
hate bullying myself is totally wrong and feel sorry for those who like to
do the bullying they got nothing better to do. They got no selfsteem at all they are the ones with the problem!!